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“HE WON’T GET past New Hampshire”.
“He’ll fall apart in the debates.”
“He can’t survive calling Mexicans rapists/pledging to ban Muslims/making fun of a disabled man/calling into question a judge’s integrity.”
Every time these things have been said about Donald Trump, he has sailed beyond the doubts of the media, a portion of the public and, most crucially, his opponents.
Now, there is but one opponent – Hillary Clinton – and again the logic is that a general election campaign will be too bruising, too revealing for the political novice Trump.
Hillary’s been here before, she knows what has to be done, she has a better team and ground game.
But, is there any reason to believe that Trump won’t continue to defy the conventional wisdom and actually become leader of the free world?
Yes
The short answer is yes. Trump is, essentially, in a two-horse race now.
And, despite what many might want to believe, he’s not a million miles away.
A latest averaging of polls shows Clinton ahead by around four percentage points, 43 to 39. That’s one point outside the margin of error and shows that 18% of people are either undecided or voting for neither.
Nowhere in the world would that be considered an unwinnable election by either side.
The keys to Trump’s success are really two-fold: his “outsider” appeal and Clinton’s unpopularity with a large section of American society. A political juggernaut, Clinton’s pedigree isn’t enough to turn a massive portion of the US public.
Latest polling gives her a 38%-56% favourable/unfavourable split with Americans. Trump’s is 34%-59%.
At this week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland, chants of “lock her up” rang around the arena at the mention of Clinton. On Tuesday, the words “Hillary” and “Clinton” were the two most used of the evening.
Trump’s one-time presidential rival Ben Carson even linked her to Lucifer himself.
“She should be in jail,” Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York during the 9/11 attacks of 2001, told MSNBC.
Of the 25 speeches on Tuesday alone, fully 19 were anti-Hillary. Just six focused primarily on singing Trump’s praises, including addresses delivered by his son Donald Jr and daughter Tiffany.
While they blame her for Benghazi and accuse her of covering her incompetence on that tragic night, one retired Marine and informal advisor for Trump ramped up the rhetoric to another level, calling for Clinton’s execution.
“Hillary Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot for treason,” Al Baldasaro, said.
Her campaign shoved back, lambasting Republicans for making the “lock her up” chant “the mantra of the RNC.”
“If you closed your eyes, you could imagine it being a lot like a witch trial – they were barely one step removed from screaming ‘burn her at the stake,’” Clinton’s campaign said in a fundraising email.
And Yet
And here is the rub: a moderate Republican like Mitt Romney or John McCain would be ahead of Clinton this week.
Her primary battle with Bernie Sanders went on far longer than it should have, she is unpopular and Trump is riding the crest of a wave in convention week.
And still he’s behind. Because he himself is massively disliked by a large section of the US.
While he will now have three and a half months to woo those voters, his campaign so far has seen him play to his most vociferous base.
But, the party that gave the world the first black US secretary of state in Colin Powell and the first African American woman secretary of state in Condoleezza Rice has been accused of alienating black voters and one man in particular is getting the blame: Trump.
“I can’t speak for the whole community but I can speak for me and he has turned me off,” says black retiree and Hillary Clinton supporter Gloria Bivins attending a civil rights convention in Ohio.
While Mitt Romney won 6% of the black vote in the 2012, he said, Republicans got 10% of the black vote in the 2014 mid-term elections and Ohio Governor John Kasich 26%.
Yet the optics, at least, do not look good for Trump. Unlike Clinton, he declined to address black civil rights organisation the NAACP, in what has become a rite of passage for US presidential candidates.
Et tu?
Added to that, there was something else in the air in Cleveland: a sense that many of the Republican politicians are starting their own campaign to challenge Hillary in 2020.
Step forward Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton, all stopping short of being Brutus to Trump’s Caesar, but hardly carrying him on their shoulders.
Each man addressed the Republican delegates this week, showing face where an older generation of like-minded Republicans pointedly stayed away.
“Most party leaders expect Trump to lose,” said Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s school of politics.
“Many of them are not for Trump, and they aren’t happy that he has presented the party with loads of problems.”
The road to 270
LOLGOP / TwitterFYI: If Clinton is really winning North Carolina, there's almost no way for Trump to win. pic.twitter.com/eVsWc97OiK
— Go to Bluesky to save your brain -- L O L G O P (@LOLGOP) July 15, 2016
Then there’s the maths.
Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the White House. A good number of those votes are more or less sewn up for both parties – just as Texas is going to vote Republican, California will go Democrat.
However, the 2012 election wasn’t close. Barack Obama took almost every one of the 12 “swing states” – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Colorado, and North Carolina.
This time around, polling shows Clinton ahead in North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, Michigan, Virginia, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Should she take those, without Florida’s 29 electoral votes, Pennsylvania’s 20 or Ohio’s 18, she would still narrowly pip Trump.
But, as we have learned, even that might not be enough to stop The Donald.
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My first time getting it from tomorrow and I’m so thankful it’s available, the workplace were originally going to pay us only 50% of our contracted hours which was just not something some staff on 8 hour contracts could live on, especially when they work a lot more than 8 hours a week. Retail, even as management, is precarious!
@Whatever: I was on it from the middle of March last year until the end of December as my job is still closed but thankfully got a college placement co-op position for the next 8 months so I am off it now. Was very grateful to receive the PUP, glad it’s there for ye now being laid off again
@Whatever: As self employed I applied last year and was told NO. Now I eat beans, no heat, food or help. No one cares.
@Paul Somers: why was that? I know a few self employed people that got it. My brother and husband included
@Paul Somers: had you a tax return completed and paid for the previous financial year? If you completed a return in October/November 2019 for the 2018 tax year you should have got it. If you only started your business in 2019 you should qualify once you submitted a return for that year.
@Laura Clayton: I honestly don’t know, I pay tax and the vat. Got scared, and now sitting in the house with thermals and a wooly hat. I would love a cuppa
@Derdaly: yes I did
@Paul Somers: you should be entitled to it keep contacting your local social welfare office they will get it sorted for you. I was waiting 5 weeks for mine to come through but I got it eventually with persistence
@Brian Byrne: gave up but thank you
@Paul Somers: honestly don’t give up Paul keep at them daily until they sort it for you. I sent in the postal application and applied online through the social services portal. It was all sorted eventually.
@Paul Somers: That might be why you never got it. If you want it it’s there for you as long as you provide what’s required of you.
@Seán O’Loughlin: it’s embarrassing
@Paul Somers: You were told lies. I’m self employed and on the full PUP.
@Paul Somers: paul I’m self employed and I’m on it since March last year. I had to apply 3 times because it never went through online. The last time I posted it in and was eventually back dated to the 1st time I applied. You are 100% entitled to it. Hope thing get better for you soon.
Heard of some people being denied loans because they claimed pup. Thought it wasn’t meant to affect your credit rating?
@Brian Dunne: yeah that is true. Iv heard of people having their mortgage application rejected because one of the joint applicants were on PUP. Even with employer letters saying their job is secure and available for the person to return to. I don’t know if it effects your actual credit rating, but banks will not lend to people on social welfare and PUP is social welfare no matter what way you break it down. Its a joke
@Eoin Jackson: and before people start blasting the banks as the big bad wolves for that strategy, that is mandated by the CBI, which in other words, is basically mandated by the government.
@Eoin Jackson: yup – that was the case for me and my husband last April. We were both on Pup and both had letters confirming future employment and BoI pulled our approval. They’d issued it in February and we were sale agreed on a house and everything. That all fell through.
Ended up going to the credit union. Their deal isn’t great and you’ve to have a 30% down payment (Christ) but they signed off on it for us while both on Pup. In our own house now since November and I’m still on pup. Husband back at work but laid off on the wage subsidy scheme. We are well able to afford the mortgage repayments but there’s not a chance we could have afforded to rent a place
Cash nixer bonanza
@MickN: Mor on. It’s keeping the wolf from the door for so many people.
@Seán Óg: Aye right…
Where do I sign up?
Went on the PUP in November because of redundancy.. started a new job today. Happy days!
Banks are very hard to deal with this lockdown. I tried to get a 2 month freeze on the mortgage as it’s going to be 2 months until I’m back up and running. Spent an hour filling in the online form. Looking now for last years earnings. Accountant letters etc. etc. What’s last years accounts got to do with being out of work this year due to a pandemic. I think the government should be doing more with the banks like last lockdown.
Serious question: Do people living in Northern Ireland, if working in the south, get paid PUP from the Irish Government?
@David Connell: only available to people with pps /prsi no. You have to supply details in order to qualify
And the reports of the country bouncing back later this year and the housing market being strong.
What a load of bs
@billy bound: I’m in construction and I’m up the walls. That includes every construction friend I know. Covid has made things busier not quieter.
If you get OAP and out of work you don’t qualify, even if you pay taxes
When do they transfer to jobseekers (aka regular dole)?
And still you’ll get another tax demand at the end of this year like most people did in the last 2 weeks
when the chickens come home to roost this place will be worse than 2008.
If you are getting OAP but still working before Covid hit and were paid on PAYE basis, as far as I know, you are entitled to PUP. However if OAP and self employed and NOT on PAYE system, (just taxed at end of year when returns are made)then no PUP. Anyway this is what happened 2 of my friends who were in each situation as described
have your say